August Wells: A Birth Story, Part II

Read Part I here.

After Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks found each other at the top of the Empire State Building, the movie ended and we went to bed without disturbing the peaceful night into which we had settled.

But I couldn’t sleep.  Everything was too unsettling.  So I got up out of bed and did what any modern woman would do.  I tiptoed out to the livingroom, sat down on the couch, and started googling “pre-labor symptoms” on my laptop with the faint glow of the city night lights lighting my silent space in the livingroom.  I googled my diagnosis of “1 cm dilated, 90% effaced” and found that women went into labor an hour after that status, or 3 weeks after that status. So helpful, right?

But right then, the most helpful thing to predict labor that could have possibly happened, happened.  I all of the sudden felt strange so I got up off the couch and walked into the bathroom, just in time for my water to gush in a puddle on the bathroom floor.  I remember breaking into a huge smile and looking up at myself in the mirror, as if seeking a witness from the face in the mirror that this just happened.  My water broke.  In that moment, I stood completely still for a few moments, taking in the brief moments where no one in all the world except for me knew. Silent, full joy.  One of the best kinds.

I rushed back down the short hallway into our bedroom to wake Neal, my anticipation and adrenaline all of the sudden making me afraid that he would beat me to it by wandering sleepily out the bedroom looking for me after realizing my absence.  I found him fast asleep, and I reached across the bed to wake him.  Honey.  My water broke.  It was 2:00am.

To be continued...